


You Gave Me Something to Miss

by reggievass



Category: Brick (2005), Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-05
Updated: 2012-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-29 00:08:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/313677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reggievass/pseuds/reggievass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur wanted to tell her she was dangerous, but Mal was not Laura.<br/>She wasn’t Emily either. But she was Brendan enough to make Arthur run.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Gave Me Something to Miss

They said their goodbyes on the last day of school.

Brain handed him the papers with a name not linked to fingerprints on a gun, a bloody jacket and a dead girl.

“You did good,” Brendan said.

“You too, Arthur,” said Brain.

Brendan, no, Arthur nodded at the name and boarded his bus out of town. He found the Rubik’s cube in his bag when he pulled his papers back out at the enlistment office.

###

Arthur tossed the cube up in the barracks while the British professor-type talked about new opportunities and training programs. By the time it hit his palm, Arthur knew it wasn’t his.

He threw the Rubik’s at the old man’s face and then cracked his head on the end of the bed.

The whole room shook and Arthur opened his eyes somewhere new.

He jumped up and a young woman stabbed him in the chest with a hypodermic.

The next time he opened his eyes, his hands were shackled to the bed.

“Professor Miles,” the old man said, “And my daughter and assistant, Mal.”

Miles learned Arthur did not like surprises. Arthur learned Mal was very fast.

###

He stole a loaded die from the gambling British liaison because it was square, but easier to hide than the Rubik’s cube. And because the man annoyed him.

Arthur thought him too young to have the rank he wore, and asked Brain to check.

Brain informed him the name in question belonged to a dead SAS officer.

But by that time, the imposter had already left with three PASIVs.

Because Arthur despaired at the lax security and because he never held to organizations over people, Arthur left with Miles and Mal when they returned to Paris.

No one stopped him.

###

Brain visited Arthur in Paris when he graduated early from MIT.

Arthur introduced him to dreamshare, Miles and Mal.

Brain liked them all, but for him, reality was enough.

Arthur failed not being jealous.

He slipped the scrambled Rubik’s cube in Brain’s bag before he flew back to L.A.

###

Miles thought they should only use the dreams for creation, but neither Mal nor Arthur bought that. Arthur would lead their chosen team into the worlds that Mal built.

After they spent a week in a replica Paris for an extraction, Mal was the only one to notice Arthur clutch the die tight in his fist.

“Does that prove this is real?” she asked as she wound up the lines and closed the case.

“It proves that was false,” he said. “You should get one too.”

###

Arthur’s dreams came every night – dark grey images of a tunnel, Emily walking but never reaching him before rushing black plastic covered them both.

Miles had told them they might stop dreaming.

The night Arthur woke up without seeing her, he went under as soon as he could manage to open the case. He could never forget her in reality, but he might lose her in the dream if he stayed under long enough.

In the dream, Arthur opened his eyes on the street outside a tattoo parlor in San Clemente. The image he wanted was on the folded piece of paper in his pocket.

###

Arthur suspected Mal had found her own reality scale, but did not ask.

They were working a small job with no extras. Mal was under with the mark, while Arthur watched over their sleeping bodies.

Halfway through the allotted time, Mal woke up shaking. She pulled a metal top from her pocket with unsteady hands and spun it.

It toppled.

She said shakily, “That wasn’t real.”

Arthur shot the mark through the head where he lay on the hotel floor.

Mal looked up at him.

He thought of Em who hated his protection and apologized. “I’m sorry.”

Arthur prepared for many contingencies, but he was surprised when Mal let him hold her as she cried.

###

They tried to avoid jobs that took more than their two, but sometimes they still worked with a crew.

On one of these jobs, they were both under and Arthur was the dreamer.

A projection shot him while he was dealing with the mark’s sub-security.

They barricaded themselves in a bathroom and Mal dropped to his side with her pistol.

“No,” Arthur said. “The dream will collapse.”

She grabbed a handful of paper towels and opened his shirt.

When she shoved them to his bloody stomach, he failed in his attempt not to cry out.

Mal tapped her trigger finger to the tattoo over his heart.

“Tell me about this,” she ordered pressing in the shape between the curve and the line. “Is it an ‘A’?” she asked.

“Are you trying to distract me?” Arthur said through bloody teeth. “Because I don’t need it.”

She kissed him then.

He stared up at his red on her lips as the walls shook.

Arthur wanted to tell her she was dangerous, but Mal was not Laura.

She wasn’t Emily either. But she was Brendan enough to make Arthur run.

###

Brain let him know when Mal asked him to check out her fiancé.

Arthur came back to Paris.

He walked into the college and looked through the window into Miles’s classroom.

Mal and her fiancé stood talking in front of the desk.

Arthur saw the way she looked at him.

He had the sudden urge to warn her how much it was bound to hurt her.

Mal waved him in when she noticed him watching.

She smiled and Arthur realized she already knew.

###

Arthur did not work every job with Mal and Cobb, but he checked on them often. He liked the way he imagined Mal’s smile every time he called her Mrs. Cobb.

Mal’s voice sounded tinny in the way that meant Dom was listening too on the other side of the speakerphone.

“You remember the fake British liaison?” she asked. “His real name is Eames.”

“He stole our PASIV,” Cobb added.

“I’ll get it,” Arthur said. The comment was for Cobb’s benefit; Mal would have known.

“Don’t kill him,” she said.

Cobb laughed because he thought it was a joke.

“You like him,” Arthur said.

“Not as much as you,” Mal said.

Arthur wondered if Cobb thought that was a joke too.

When Arthur found Eames, he was alone in a hotel room. Eames came out of the bathroom unarmed and wrapped in a towel.

Arthur broke his nose with the handle of his gun and lifted Mal’s PASIV.

“Was that for impersonating an officer?” Eames asked behind the hand he had cupped around his face. “If so, I’d like to point out the hypocrisy of a loyal deserter.”

“Don’t steal from Mrs. Cobb,” Arthur said.

Eames would think him Dom Cobb’s lap dog, and that was fine.

Arthur preferred being misunderstood.

###

Mal had not wanted to choose before the baby was born, but now that she held the little blonde girl in her arms, Arthur could ask, “What’s her name?”

“Phillipa,” she said, and it sounded perfect.

“We’re not sure about a middle name though,” Cobb added.

“What’s your favorite name, Arthur?” Mal asked her voice focused even if her eyes kept straying back to her child.

“Emily,” Arthur said because it was still true.

“Phillipa Emily Cobb.” Mal blinked seriously up at Arthur from the hospital bed. “Dom, would you go tell them?”

When he was gone, she held Phillipa up.

Arthur took her.

“Dom will try,” Mal said, “but I need you to promise you will protect her.”

To the little girl held tight to his chest, Arthur said, “I will do everything to keep you safe.”

Mal watched her child in his killer’s arms and smiled.

###

The Cobbs moved to a small suburb outside LA.

Brain sent Arthur frequent updates.

“She’s the only one who calls me James,” he said of Mal the way he used to say, “I think she’s with us,” about Laura.

Arthur did not tell him not to fall for her. Everyone did.

###

Mal had her second child early.

Arthur was on a job.

She called him after.

“James Brendan Cobb,” she said low into the phone reassuring him no one could hear.

“That Brain’s idea?” Arthur asked.

He imagined Mal shrugged.

“He helped me get to the hospital on time,” she said. “I thought James was a good choice. I wanted his middle name to be Arthur,” Mal continued, “but Brain said Brendan was better.”

“Better?”

“More accurate,” said Mal.

Arthur was not sure that was true anymore, but he did not bother to deny it.

When Arthur came back, Mal was calling the Brain “Brain” to avoid their being two James.

Brain didn’t mind.

Mal lifted her son up, and Arthur did not need prompting to promise his protection.

“Why did you never ask me to protect Cobb?” Arthur asked as he handed James back.

Mal’s brow crinkled in confusion. “That’s my job first,” she said, “and if I were gone, I’d want him with me.”

Her selfishness made Arthur glad she was not perfect.

###

Arthur did not trust any forgers well enough to recommend. When Cobb found a job that needed two, Mal had sourced it on her own with help from Brain.

Brain called Arthur the day the job started. “I didn’t realize it was that Kara until she got here,” he said.

“Has she made you?” Arthur asked as he changed directions.

“No,” Brain said.

“Then get out.”

Arthur called and told Mal, “You and Cobb leave when I get there.”

When he walked into the rented warehouse forty minutes later, Mal grabbed Cobb and pulled him out the door.

Kara and Eames watched confused.

From behind them, Arthur said, “Kara,” and they both turned around.

She looked at him with wide, surprised eyes and tried to say his name.

Arthur shot her in the throat.

“Off the leash, mate?” Eames said calmly though his eyes flickered to the gun. “What did she do to you?”

“Mr. Eames.” Mal walked back in from wherever she had stashed Cobb. “We won’t need you after all.”

After they were alone, Arthur said, “I can handle this.”

Mal did not speak, and she did not leave.

When they came back to the house smelling of gasoline, Cobb stared at them as if he were not quite sure they weren’t projections.

Arthur washed his hands thoroughly before he played with the children.

###

Cobb called him frantic and Arthur rushed over.

“She thinks she’s still dreaming,” Cobb said and took the kids out.

Arthur and Mal watched her top topple again and again as they sat at her kitchen table.

“He knows how it works,” she said. “It could be his dream.”

“He doesn’t know how my die works,” Arthur offered.

“Neither do I,” said Mal.

“I don’t have the tattoo in reality,” Arthur said.

“Dom didn’t know you had one anyway.”

“I can’t convince you, can I?” Arthur asked.

She shook her head. “No.” She seemed almost sorry and Arthur wondered what Cobb had gotten up to inside her head.

“I can kill him,” he said, “if you want.”

“Thank you, but no,” Mal said. “He has to want to wake up.”

Now that she would not believe it, Arthur told her about Brendan and Emily, about the way he had been happy, even if he could not remember the feeling.

Mal said she wouldn’t tell.

Arthur figured she didn’t really have anyone to tell his secrets to.

After the funeral, Cobb sat at the kitchen table spinning a top that was not his.

Arthur had to remind himself that Mal had told him no.

###

Mal showed up on the first job Arthur and Cobb worked that went more than one dream deep.

Arthur drew the mark’s attention away from Cobb’s breaking and entering. He blew up a bank to flood the area with police before taking his rifle to a high rise to pick them off in the street.

When Mal walked in, Arthur wasn’t sure whose projection she was.

He kept shooting. Groups of police split off below and headed for his and two other skyscrapers.

Arthur knew she was Cobb’s when she sat beside him. His version of Mal would have joined him with another rifle. “I want Dom with me,” she said. “He needs to wake up.”

“To kill himself,” Arthur said for clarity.

“To stay here,” she said. “With me.”

Arthur shook his head. “You should want him to jump,” he said. “That’s what Mal wanted.”

She looked confused. “Do you want Dom to die?”

“If you were real, you’d know the answer to that.”

She looked angry. Arthur had never seen that expression. He wondered how familiar it was to Cobb.

“I’m real enough for him,” she said.

“Maybe,” Arthur allowed. “Anyone who really knew Mal couldn’t fall for a projection’s incompleteness.”

She drew a pistol and shot him in the head.

It was the most Mal-like thing she had done.

###

After they completed inception, Cobb went home to his children.

Mal’s projection would not be there when Arthur dreamt again.

The night before he took a job without Cobb, Arthur went under on his own to visit the same tattoo parlor in his old hometown.

There was no piece of paper in his pocket this time; instead, he carried a metal top.

Next to the stark lines of the tunnel on his chest, the top seemed more real rendered with texture and shadow. That was as it should be.

Arthur walked the streets of San Clemente and they lead into Army barracks, into Paris, into dream corridors from jobs before Mal was Mrs. Cobb.

Alone in his own dream, Arthur walked through memories until his clock ran out.


End file.
